With its unparalleled depth and realism, Football Manager 2022 takes you closer than any other game to the dream of real football management. 

The options and level of control you have in FM is unparalleled with any other football game. It can take a while to get up to speed, as is the case with managers in the professional game - who spend years training and completing their badges to do the job for real.

However, we want you to hit the ground running with your club. Here are five tips to get as much out of the game as quickly as possible. 

Choosing a club primed for success

While you may eventually have ambitions to go from zero to hero, taking a side from the bottom division to the very top of the footballing pyramid, it’s a difficult way to start your managerial journey when you’re new to the game. 

To get the most from your first few hours of play, we’d recommend choosing a club who have all the foundations in place for success – a strong backroom team, a big scouting network and a healthy transfer budget. This will allow you more time to get a feel for your own management style and how this year’s new features will shape your progression.

Using tactical presets 

In your first day on the job, one of your first tasks is to create a tactic, the building block for how you want your team to play. While you can opt to start from scratch when developing your approach, there is an easier way to hit the ground running…

Our tactical presets are based on the world’s most popular playing styles, allowing you to model your style on the world’s leading coaches. There are modern approaches such as Tiki-Taka and Gegenpress as well as established methods that allow you to control possession or counter-attack.

When you initially enter the tactics menu, you’ll notice one or more ‘thumb’s up’ icons. These indicate your assistant’s recommendations for what’ll work best for your club. Their advice is based on the players you’ve got in your squad and their particular skills and abilities - the key to any successful tactic is playing to your strengths. 

Within each tactic you’ll find three separate areas for instruction – In Possession (when you have the ball), In Transition (when you’ve just lost or regained possession) and Out of Possession (when you’re defending). Choosing one of these presets covers those instructions for you, thereby saving you time and priming your squad for a good start. 

Along with helping you set up the right tactic, your staff can aid you when it comes to picking your best lineup for each game. Located in the top right of the Tactics menu, the Quick Pick tool lets your backroom team suggest your best starting XI and substitutes. 

Delegating tasks to your staff

Talking of your staff, one of the best skills you can learn as a manager is delegation, delegation, delegation. 

In modern football we’re seeing larger and larger backroom teams that support managers. This is reflected in FM22, where you can pick and choose which areas you want to focus on and which you want to hand over to your backroom staff. You can amend most of your managerial responsibilities when initially creating your manager, and then make as many changes as you want during the season from within the Staff menu.

You’ll probably get most use from this in pre-season, allowing others to arrange and take control of friendlies and handle contract negotiations with players and staff members. Day-to-day activities during the season can be offloaded as well. Training, for example, is an area where you'll benefit from your staff’s expertise. They know what they're doing, so put them to work. Allowing your assistant to handle team training and create calendars limits your day-to-day workload, keeping you free to focus elsewhere. This doesn’t mean you can’t have an influence, though; if there’s a particular aspect you think the squad needs to pay attention to – like set pieces – you can add that to the existing schedule or assign specific programs for individual players.

Secure that big signing with the Scouting Centre

Once you’ve set up your initial tactic, we’d suggest reviewing the Squad Depth chart located as a tab in the Squad screen. This provides an overview of your players, and their suitability, for your current tactic. From this, you’ll get an immediate understanding of where you’re strong and where you need reinforcements.

While it might be tempting, especially if you’ve got a big budget to work with, to spend, spend, spend in your first transfer window, our tip to avoid squad disharmony is to play the transfer market carefully. Too many signings at once can affect the chemistry within your team; an unhappy squad can lead to poor results. Use the Squad Depth chart to target your weak points before making a couple of key additions that’ll take your squad to greater heights. 

To kick-off the search for your new signings, you'll want to head to the Scouting section on the sidebar. Clicking into this section takes you to the Scouting Centre where you can view reports from your scouts on potential transfer targets. These reports will have grades ranging from A+ to F to give you an instant idea of whether the player is worth pursuing. Here you’ll notice the benefit of managing a big club – the better scouts you have in your team, the better-quality reports you’ll receive. 

If you've got a specific position of the pitch that you want to strengthen then you can head to the Player Search page and use the Quick Search dropdown to select the position you want where you'll be able to see the players who match that criteria that are interested in joining you.
Be sure though to stock up on youth prospects that you can guide all the way from the academy to the first team. After all, that is what Football Manager is all about. 

In Match Management

All managers prove their worth by winning football matches and key to any success is good, in-game management. In FM22, you have all the tools to make those crucial game-changing decisions and guide your team to success.

During a match, your staff are always looking for ways to improve and it’ll serve you well to listen to their advice, whether that’s targeting opposition players to mark or highlighting any tactical instructions you need to add. When your players are showing signs of fatigue, they'll also point out any substitutions you need to make. Of course, you can also tinker yourself if you spot an opportunity.

If the match is not moving at your pace, don't let the default speed slow down your quest for glory. You can decide how much of the action you see, speed up the highlights and even turn off replays. Some want to savour the action and others want to race to the final whistle, and we cater for everyone. You can also toggle which camera you view the match on which, just like in the professional game, will show you different angles of your build-up play, goals and defending.

Hopefully these tips will allow you to make a great start as you head towards the moments that matter for your club. Once you’ve mastered the basics, you can start to customise your FM22 experience by getting down into the detail and taking on more responsibilities.